Everything you need to know about running and life and any other random crap I find bouncing through my mind like a ping pong ball. And always be sure your shoes are happy.

Bruno Mars: Setting the Bar Impossibly High for the Next Generation

Apparently at some point in the not-too-distant past I thought it would be funnier than canned monkey meat to put Bruno Mars’ song “Grenade” on my iPod, knowing full well that I’d forget I did so and that at some point it would rotate to the top of the play list – hopefully while I still had a bunch of miles to go so it would be stuck in my head for, like, 80 minutes – and I’d immediately blame one of the twins since that’s who I always blame practical jokes on even though they’re 24 years old and haven’t lived at home for 6 years. Blaming them makes it feel like they’re still here, however, so I like to do so whenever possible.

When you first listen to his lyrics you might think Bruno is a bit of an insecure masochist, what he’d do out of the goodness of his heart and the depth of his undying (well, undying as long as the grenade doesn’t blow after he catches it) love and she won’t do the same. But meditate on these lyrics for 7 or 8 miles (which won’t be hard to do since this is one of the most insidious earworms ever written) and you will find a depth of selflessness and commitment that the next generation needs to see.

“I’d catch a grenade for ya”

When the hubs and I were dating – you know, you’re young, you’re unsure…what’s the commitment level here – you’d like to see some proof that the guy has your back. One day we were walking through the grocery parking lot and in the next row over – YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS! – a dude tossed a grenade at a girl; just pushing her cart full of Bud Light 24 packs and a can of onion dip while the boyfriend walked behind her watching her butt and BAM – here comes a grenade! As we stared, mouths agape, the boyfriend LEAPED into the air and landed smack on that cart full of Bud Light. The girl got a little shook up when the grenade blew her shoes and one of her pinkie toes off, but, hey – boyfriend saved the beer. That’s commitment.

“Throw my hand on a blade for ya”

One day a few years ago while walking through the gardens at the castle I was feeling a bit irritated because my Knight Errant was wandering the land looking for adventure and I was bored. Suddenly – YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS! – a Black Knight jumped out the trees and tried to stab me with his blade! I mean, sure, I refused to dance with him at the last ball. And maybe I mentioned the rumor about the size of his blade compensating for something, but he was aiming for blood! My blood! And BAM – here comes Knight Errant, back from his adventures at just the right moment and he THREW his hand on that blade! Unfortunately it wasn’t his steel blade the Black Knight had unsheathed, which made it a slightly uncomfortable situation for all involved…but still – that’s commitment.

“I’d jump in front of a train for ya”

Another time while the hubs and I were dating we went for a picnic at a park. Pretty day, little birdies tweeting, little kids laughing, little fishies playing in the stream, everyone just all happy kind of like in The Truman Show when suddenly – YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS! – a train jumped the tracks and went careening across the intersection, jumped the fence at the park and was heading straight for me and all the happy birdies and children and fishies! YES! A runaway train! And the engineer had been knocked unconscious, he was hanging halfway out of the window, his eyes rolled back in his head and his tongue lolling out – you could see he was going to be of no use whatsoever – and BAM! boyfriend jumped in front of that train! Of course it was a train for god’s sake and it almost smashed him flat, he was in the hospital ironing things out for months. But still. That’s commitment.

“Take a bullet straight through my brain”

Another time while the hubs and I were dating we were at the grocery store again. We had to do that a lot because all he ever had at his place was canned tuna, bananas and half a package of spaghetti noddles. We were planning a nice dinner. Pot roast, veggies, canned biscuits. It was a pretty hot day – it can get kinda hot in Phoenix in August, 116, 118, nothing special there – we’d loaded the groceries in the car which had reached about 190 degrees inside and were getting ready get in the car when suddenly – YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS! There was a huge explosion and boyfriend jumped in shock and tripped over me and was slammed in the back of the head with a bullet! He reached up and felt his brains squishing out – it was incredible that he was still so aware and cognizant, and he said calmly, “I just took a bullet straight through my brain. And I did it for you.” Since I didn’t see any blood (I don’t do blood, I don’t care if you do have a bullet straight through your brain) I looked a bit closer and I saw that actually canned biscuit dough had exploded and was squishing through his fingers, not his brains, and even though he didn’t really throw himself on me and take that bullet straight through his brain, still – that’s commitment.

“Yes I would die for you, baby”

I’m a pretty decent cook when I feel like cooking. After 26 years of marriage making dinner every night has kind of lost it’s luster but when the hubs and I were dating it seemed important that he think I would be making nice dinners for him if things ever escalated to the m-m-m-maa-maa-maarrrrriage stage. Sure, maybe they say you should not use a can of green beans which is buldging at both ends but “they” are always saying stuff like brush your teeth and take your vitamins and drink more milk so after a while you get tired of everything “they” say and you think, screw it. I’m not going to listen. I know better. So after I made dinner I thought, you know, I don’t really like green beans that much, I don’t want any so I just gave them all to boyfriend because I’m so generous that way. And – YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS! About 2 am future hubs was barfing like a Yellowstone Park geyser and about the color of old milk (altho when I mentioned it he didn’t seem very pleased and the thought of old yellow milk somehow made him feel worse). After about 48 hours he’d only lost 12 or 15 pounds and needed 3 IV’s of fluid and he was good as new. Sort of. I still thought he looked about the color of old milk but boy – I wasn’t going to mention THAT again – and he said, I ALMOST DIED FOR YOU(R GREEN BEANS). See? That’s commitment.

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3 thoughts on “Bruno Mars: Setting the Bar Impossibly High for the Next Generation”

Yeah, I don’t have this one on my ipod so thanks for the earworm warning. As we have discussed on long runs, I am very susceptible to the earworm and spent most of the last two days trying to shake “Pumped Up Kicks” out of my head – but not the whole song, or even the whole chorus, just three maddening lines of the chorus in an endless loop. The only sure way I know to get rid of an earworm is to pass it on to someone else (I also find that listening to anything by Snow Patrol will sometimes cancel one out while never resulting in a replacement earworm). I told Husband and – YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS – he invited me to sing it to him, thus offering to catch my earworm to save me from further trauma. Now that’s committment.

That’s all I ever get stuck in my head, usually just a couple sentences which I cannot block for hours or days – sometimes it will finally disappear only to reappear a day or two later: I’ve had “Danny’s Song” stuck on and off for almost four weeks now…
Glad I could help 😉 Jeremy and Me – we got your back!

LOL. I missed this post earlier. Luckily, My iPod Shuffle hasn’t been updated in 3 years. However, whenever I put on the music channel on TV, BM is blasting out loud. I have had similar thoughts about this song… 😉